Retention Is the Key

Re:Retention Is the Key by jacquesm on Thursday August 06, 2015 @06:35AM (#10015615)

For a dating website retention is extremely important. After all, if the dating website is to be a commercial success the last thing you want with a subscription model is to have everybody use the site once on their trial period and then cancel. Successful dating websites all bank on being able to extend their customer life-cycle as long as possible.

If your retention is good enough (> 98% month-to-month) then you can focus on other things but if it isn't then you're likely going to burn through a lot of cash faking growth when you really should be focusing on why people are leaving and fixing that first before you spend the big marketing bucks.

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Re:Retention Is the Key by michaelt on Thursday August 06, 2015 @07:45AM (#10015803)

All other things being equal, a plumber or mechanic isn't better because his/her customers are returning every 3 months instead of every few years.

Likewise, I'd rather use a dating website to meet a long-term partner (and cancel my subscription) than go on a bunch of unsuccessful dates leading to short term relationships (keeping my account open).

A dating website that is delivering what customers want /should/ have low retention. A dating website with excellent retention has probably decided retention is more important than getting their users into long-term relationships.

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Re:Retention Is the Key by brudgers on Thursday August 06, 2015 @08:25AM (#10015928)

In the context of the article, all things aren't equal because:

  new business != startup

Startups in the sense the author describes do not include ordinary plumbing and mechanical companies because such companies lack a capital structure that could allow growth to a publicly traded entity. The second example company is in a good business and it's owner can buy a boat. It could never IPO.

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Re:Retention Is the Key by jrs235 on Thursday August 06, 2015 @07:46AM (#10015808)

Here's an interesting post about being a successful dating site: http://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website

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